A former Detroit-area airport official is accused of receiving more than $5 million in kickbacks from contractors.

Federal prosecutors say it's one of the largest bribery cases in Michigan's Eastern District.

James Warner was charged Wednesday with conspiracy, bribery, money laundering and obstruction of justice. He was an infrastructure manager at the agency that runs Detroit Metropolitan Airport, from 2010 through 2014.

The Michigan appeals court says a four-year prison sentence for a polite bank robber was unreasonable.

The court has granted a new hearing to James Gailey. Guidelines suggested a minimum sentence of 10 months in jail, but Jackson County Judge John McBain went much higher.

Gailey pleaded guilty to robbing a bank just two days before Christmas in 2014. He told a teller to put money into a cloth bag. Gailey didn't have a weapon, and he apologized several times. He was accused of robbing the same bank months later.

Teachers at a Detroit charter school are demanding a new contract by the start of next month.

Teaching staff at Southwest Detroit Community School have been bargaining with charter management since the fall. Teachers, parents and union leaders made the case for a June 1 deadline at a school board meeting Wednesday night.

Stateside's conversations with Michigan mother Paula Reeves and professor Michael Perlin, professor emeritus at New York Law School.

Last week, a 17-year old student opened fire at Santa Fe High School. He left 10 dead and 10 more injured.

With every mass shooting in the United States comes a cry to address the issue of mental health. Lawmakers say we need to identify these troubled kids — and get them mental health resources before something terrible happens.

Michigan lawmakers passed a trio of bills Tuesday evening would create a panel to oversee the actions of the state Department of Environmental Quality. The legislation is now on its way to Governor Snyder’s desk.

The EPA held a national PFAS Summit in Washington on Tuesday to dive into issues surrounding the per-and-polyfluoroalkyl substances which have contaminated groundwater in sites across the country, including 31 known sites here in Michigan.

Nearly 500 Detroit second-grade students have received new bikes, helmets, locks and bells after completing a bicycle safety program.

The bikes and other items were given Tuesday to the students by the Detroit Red Wings, Chevrolet and the Detroit Public Schools Foundation during a special assembly at Little Caesars Arena.

The students attend 10 schools in the Detroit Public Schools Community District. They have been practicing riding and learning road safety since April in their physical education classes as part of the Road & Bicycle Program.

Last week, I spoke to a candidate for statewide office who lamented that she hadn’t been able to get out much among the people or keep up on important policy issues because she had to spend all day, every day on the phone, raising money. I also saw a candidate in a hotly contested congressional primary who told me the same thing.

Mornings in Michigan is our series about morning routines and rituals around our state. This time of year, some people get up early to see migrating birds arriving in Michigan. Mike Kielb and his wife sometimes get up at 4 a.m.

The state Department of Civil Rights has started accepting complaints from people who say they face discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. That’s after a state commission voted this week to change its interpretation of Michigan’s civil rights law.

David Kallman is an attorney who says he will defend people accused of LGBT discrimination. He says the commission has no right to suddenly change the rules.

Long-debated legislation in response to the Larry Nassar sexual assault scandal could move out of House committee. Nassar is the former Michigan State University sports doctor who will likely spend the rest of his life in prison for sexually assaulting his patients.

There are more than 30 bills in the committee in response to Nassar. The committee has made amendments to some of them – but others might not get a vote at all. Bills getting changes include those passed earlier this year by the Senate.

The first major results are in from the American Gut Project. It’s a citizen science project to get a better understanding of the microbial communities inside our bodies.

People pay $99 to send in a sample – a swab from their hands, their mouth, or a stool sample.

Daniel McDonald is the project’s scientific director at the University of California-San Diego.

“So it turns out that most of the people sending us samples tend to send us fecal samples. We think it must just be the sexy thing to do,” he says. “But I think a lot of individuals are sending us these samples because they’re curious to learn a little bit more about these organisms that are important for your health that we are just beginning to understand in the scientific community.”

A new study from the University of Michigan says states that expanded their Medicaid programs saw a drop in intensive care admissions, compared to states that did not.

Researchers looked at data from all adult hospital discharges from 2012 through 2014 in Washington and New Jersey -- which expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act -- and North Carolina, Nebraska, and Wisconsin, which did not.

They found a 3.7 percent drop in ICU admissions for preventable conditions in the three states that expanded Medicaid compared to the two that didn't.

The statewide initiative's mission is to help teens and young adults who've been in foster care graduate from college and build successful careers.

Getting a college acceptance letter is exciting for most students, but especially for those who've spent time in the foster care system. That's because only 20 percent of graduating teens who've been in foster care make it to college.

The Education Trust-Midwest continues its quest to prod our state's leaders to do what is needed to improve our schools.

The nonpartisan research and advocacy organization is out with a new plan containing five specific ideas to reverse the decline in Michigan education and put the state on track to become a top-ten performer in education.

The counties in Southeast Michigan cannot agree on a regional transportation plan. Regional unity, as is well known, is an uphill struggle in the state.

A new report, recently completed for Michigan Future, Inc., discusses another Great Lakes state that has had major success in creating a unified regional transportation for its citizens, among other things.

Macomb and Oakland counties’ leaders want the public to support a millage renewal for regional bus service that will be on the ballot this summer.

Mark Hackel and L. Brooks Patterson also want their constituents to know that millage has nothing to do with a plan to expand transit through the Southeast Michigan Regional Transit Authority (RTA) — a body both men say they now favor abandoning in favor of strengthening that existing regional bus service, the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART).

The County has decided to take land designated for a future landfill and use it instead for a "sustainable business park." The park will house companies and technology that reuse, repurpose, or convert solid waste, generating economic development while saving landfill space.

Stateside's conversation with Paul Young, founder and publisher of Detroit Music Magazine.

Movement Music Festival, formerly known as DEMF, returns to Detroit this Memorial Day weekend. The event, now in its 19th year, draws electronic music fans from around the world, and has since evolved to include other genres such as jazz, funk and hip hop.

Neither of the Libertarian Party candidates for Michigan’s governor would release their 2017 tax returns to Bridge Magazine.

Bill Gelineau, who works at a Grand Rapids-area title agency, and John Tatar, a retired teacher from Wayne County’s Redford Township, both said they comply with state campaign finance laws. Anything beyond that, they said, is voluntary.

Libertarians in Michigan will choose their candidate for governor in a primary challenge, the first for the party in state history.

Michigan's economic development board has awarded $618 million in tax incentives for a development project in Detroit that includes a 58-story building on the site of the iconic former J.L. Hudson department store.